re: #3 cinesimon

Yeah that’s right lahiker: politics really is just one big collection of bumper sticker phrases. The real world has no place in your frame of thought. Right?

This sneering and hateful piece is to you good journalism, good reporting of what Republicans actually think?

In the real world, Ronald Reagan did NOT aspire to make the United States into a nation like Russia is today, a semi-fascist, nominally democratic state where elections are shams and opponents wind up jailed or dead. Where no unfriendly reporting is permitted.

In the real world, today’s Republicans do not admire Vladimir Putin, and do not aspire to making the U.S. like today’s Russia.

In the real world, if we have to cast about for people in U.S. politics who publicly express admiration for the likes of Putin, we have to go to the Hugo Chavez claque. All of whom are leftists.

This nasty article is just a “five minute hate”, and I forebore to predict that it would be popular here. After all, I wouldn’t want to make the charge that lizards are haters, without evidence.

You convict yourselves. This gleeful equation of Republicans with Putinists is the ugliest form of joking, because it’s basically meant to be taken seriously even though it comes cloaked as humor.

If this nation faced the rise of a real Putinist party, the prudent answer would be to suspend the constitution and suppress that party by any means necessary. So, behind this “joke” lies the implicit recommendation that this policy be adopted to deal with today’s Republicans.